4 Things to Let Go of in the New Year

The New Year acts as a turning point for a lot of us. We make resolutions and vow to do something better—diet, exercise, self-improvement, employment or educational goals, and more.

But while we’re working on achieving something new once we turn the calendar over, many of us heap worry and concerns on ourselves that we cannot control. We overburden our hearts and our minds, with guilt, negativity, expectations (sometimes unrealistic or out of our control), or worries or pain about our past.

How much are you carrying around inside your head that you’ll never have the power to change?

Maybe Elsa, one of the main characters of Disney’s hit animated film Frozen, had it right when she sang “Let It Go.” While letting go of these worries and negativity probably won’t have you dancing in the middle of a snow storm on a mountain, at the very least, you may find a sense of peace.

Here are four things to let go of in the New Year, but more importantly, here’s how you can work through them:

1. Negativity

We see this everywhere—friends, family, strangers. Negativity doesn’t only come from within ourselves. It begins like a disease, affecting a handful of people, who then infect those around them. Before you know it, there’s an entire group of people who bond over negative feelings. In many ways, you become the company that you keep. This can be drama llamas, people who spread rumors, or those who see the worst in everything. As milspouses, we’ve seen plenty of it.

Keep in mind that I don’t mean you should rid yourself of all negative emotions. For example, grief is a “negative” emotion, but it’s necessary for healing. I’m referring to the negativity that has no real purpose except to drag down yourself and others.

So how can you escape that?

Forbes magazine shared a few useful suggestions:

• Practice becoming aware of the thoughts when you have them. While you can’t control the actions of others, you can control your own thoughts. Recognize that you’re having a negative thought, process it in your mind as such, and tuck it away as a story that you’re telling yourself. Don’t fixate on it.
• Spend more time with positive people. You know that whole “becoming the company you keep” thing? Yep. Remember that negative people are rarely optimistic. Rub elbows with people who leave you feeling better.
• Don’t anticipate or expect perfection. If you demand perfection, you will likely fall short because you’re human. You make mistakes. By hoping for improvement rather than perfection, you’re less likely to feel negative feelings on your journey.
• Create and keep a positive morning routine. You set the standard of your day early in the morning. Keep it simple so you don’t overburden yourself. You can find a book or podcast on encouragement and read or listen to it each morning.
• Give yourself a moment to breathe throughout the day. Set an alarm on your phone or clear a small block of time at least once each day to clear your head and simply breathe. A clear mind helps keep negative thoughts at bay.

2. Guilt

This is another big one that affects most of us. In military life, it hits us a bit harder. Our service members may feel guilt when they have to leave their families behind. Milspouses may feel guilt when they can’t volunteer their time for FRG or at a child’s school. We may feel guilt when we have to fill the role of an absent parent and simply can’t keep up with everything. We may feel guilty when we have to say “no.”

Ultimately the hardest part about this emotion is that we have certain feelings about an event that we cannot go back and change. Ever.

How can we get around that? Here are a few ideas to help you let go of your guilt:

• Understand it. Identify the emotions of the event and understand why you thought a certain way in the moment.
• Talk about it with someone else. This can be anyone—your spouse, your best friend, even a counselor. They have an outside perspective and can offer up their own suggestions about your particular experience. Military OneSource, your local behavioral health, and your installation Military Family Life Consultants can help.
• Find compassion for yourself. You may still feel like you made the wrong choice in the past, but you will also have a better idea of why you made that choice. Accept it.
• Forgive yourself. Be clear about the mistake you made (don’t hold back or the guilt will linger) and then work on repairing yourself with the help of a counselor, if needed.

3. Expectations

The failed expectations cloud lingers over most of us in this military life. Our family goes as far as receiving orders to an exciting new duty station and then we find out, just kidding! We aren’t going. Our service member plans to go to a specific school and, POOF, Uncle Sam changes his mind. Milspouses get a great job, then orders come across our service member’s desk.

In this life, things change at the drop of a patrol cap. We try to manage our expectations of the year, creating our no-plan plan. But then what?

This idea of failed expectations comes from putting a lot of stock in the things we can’t control. There are no guarantees in life, even when the military doesn’t play a major role. We can’t tell the military what to do. We can’t control where our service member goes or how long we’ll live in one place. While many experts would say to “stop having expectations,” that’s easier said than done. But what we can do is manage our own perceptions.

• Make your expectations about you. These are expectations you can control. Things like improving your skills at your job, accomplishing a goal, fulfilling your potential, or simply improving yourself.
• Make your expectations manageable. I read the perfect phrasing when researching this article. The story went like this: Imagine that you’ve spent months training for a marathon. You mapped out your training and stuck to the schedule. You’re halfway through the race when your muscles begin cramping or you sprain your ankle. You cross the finish line last, well below your goal time. Was the expectation to do well? Yes. Are you disappointed? Probably. But that doesn’t mean you should set a new expectation to do better. The thing is, you finished the race! You gave it your all even if it didn’t turn out like you envisioned. Work through the disappointment, but don’t view it as a failure.
• Understand this is a small part in the grand scheme of your life. It’s a small thing. Let it go. The longer you hang on to it, the more the disappointment will stick with you.
• Get back to other things. To use the marathon example, start training for a different race or a different type of race. Ask for help to do better. Set small goals to protect yourself against disappointment. Rebuild that self-esteem that may have taken a chip or two.
• Forgive yourself (or your service member). If it’s orders that were later cancelled, let it go. Let yourself be sad for a moment, then move forward. It isn’t your service member’s fault. They didn’t do anything wrong to make the orders change. You didn’t do anything wrong by getting a leg cramp or twisting an ankle during that marathon. Don’t wallow in self-pity.

4. Your past

This goes well beyond military life. Working through issues in your past can be a long process and it involves some serious self-reflection. But in the end, you’re better for it.

• Let it go. Are you seeing a trend so far? Part of the journey of moving on is learning to let go. When it comes to letting go of your past, you have to learn to move on from what was. The best you can do is move forward. Recognize that you won’t think about these events anymore and, eventually, you’ll stop reliving them.
• Recognize the event, including your feelings and your responsibility. Get some blank pieces of paper or a journal and start writing. Spit out all of the feelings you have regarding events from your past. But don’t stop there. Consider your own responsibility in the event. Could you have controlled your emotions better? Was there something you could have said differently? What would you do differently if it happened again?
• Stop being the victim and start being happy. You can choose to wallow in your own self-pity, or you can vow to be happy. Choose to be happy. Being the victim may feel better than being the perpetrator, but it won’t help you move past the event. Don’t let it stick with you anymore.
• Focus on now. Memories of your past will always creep into your present. That’s okay. Acknowledge that it’s coming back, but don’t let it take over.
• Forgive yourself, but also forgive others. Forgiveness isn’t weak, despite what some people believe. It’s simply recognizing that other people make mistakes, no matter how greatly that mistake affects you. It’s simply saying, “I don’t agree with what you did, but I forgive you anyway.”

 

I can’t say it will be an “easy” journey to rid yourself of negativity, guilt, or expectations. I’m sure it’s difficult to move on from worries or concerns of the past. Even if you let it go and move forward, these four troubles can slowly creep back into your life. I only hope that you find a sense of freedom knowing you’re healing your heart, your mind, and even your conscience. Start off the New Year on the right foot.

What else do you think you should rid yourself of in the New Year? Let us know in the comments.